Click here to read the Spanish version.
Titled ‘Waku Waku‘, this new venue is located on Portland Street and is designed to look like a monochrome cartoon thanks to an optical illusion that runs throughout its interior.
It is a white-painted restaurant where every detail, from the walls to the floor to the furniture, has been outlined with a black pen to create an illusory pen-and-paper aesthetic, evoking an artist’s sketches.
Waku Waku owner Chris Lui, who has no background in art or design, did the work himself over four months during which he often stayed at the restaurant until the wee hours of the morning.
According to the Manchester Evening News, Chris Lui had this to say about the opening: ‘My wife loves the 2D cafes that are popular in countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and she said we should bring the concept to the UK because she thought people here would like it. The concept is very unique and we just used black and white lines to create the look of the restaurant.’
In this fantasy universe, the menu displays a chromatic contrast on the neutrality of the black and white surroundings, serving dishes ranging from donburi, a rice bowl dish, or emblematic dishes such as omurice, which consists of an omelet made with fried rice and thinly scrambled eggs, to bowls of fried pork chops and hearty servings of udon noodles and side dishes such as teriyaki squid.
If you want to explore the 2D restaurant in real life, you can now do so at 54 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 4QU.
